


anybody have a map?

by phillipAsoo



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Family Bonding, Family Feels, Fluff, Mother-Son Relationship, Short One Shot, della's trying her best, how did I get here why am I dancing, so like before s3, the quality of these fics is slowly decreasing im very sorry, this is set like a short while after della gets back from the moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24304432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phillipAsoo/pseuds/phillipAsoo
Summary: della just wants to be with her boys
Relationships: Della Duck & Dewey Duck & Huey Duck & Louie Duck
Comments: 22
Kudos: 75





	anybody have a map?

**Author's Note:**

> (the title actually has nothing to do with the fic its a reference to dear evan hansen i just no longer have enough brain cells to come up with a decent name! but yeah listen to deh ❤️)
> 
> this is my 10th ducktales fic i'm posting here and i've only been in the fandom for like three weeks?? wym what obsession????????

It was almost eight o’clock, and Della missed her boys.

She saw them every day. She sat with them at breakfast, played several rounds of video games with them, built pillow forts with them. Went on adventures with them. But she still missed her boys.

Every second she wasn’t holding Louie’s hand or patting Dewey’s head or squeezing Huey’s cheeks was excruciating, but she didn’t want to come across as clingy, so she tried to give them their space. (She was worried that her _kids_ thought she was clingy? God, what was her life?)

But it was eight o’clock in the evening and she was knocking on their door, just to check in. Hang out. Catch up. She was a good mom. Right? 

“Come in,” she heard Dewey say through the door. Della turned the knob and pushed the door open. She peeked her head inside.

Louie and Dewey were sprawled out on the floor on top of several blankets that had apparently been laid out to act as a cushion. They were watching something on their laptop. Huey was sinking into the giant bean bag chair in the corner of the room, reading a decent sized book.

Huey briefly looked up. “Hi, Mom.”

 _Mom_. Every time one of them said it, her heart felt like it could burst.

“What’cha boys up to?” Della asked, slipping into the room.

Dewey looked up from the laptop screen. He lifted his left hand and wiggled his fingers at Della. His nails were painted an assortment of blues.

“We’re painting our nails,” Dewey said happily. Louie nodded but didn’t look up from where he was painting Dewey’s other hand. He had a concentrated look on his face.

“Oh, neat!” Della plopped down on the blankets next to the boys and examined Dewey’s fingers. 

“Louie’s really good,” Dewey said, smiling. 

Louie glanced up at Della and offered, “I could do yours.” He blushed a little. “If you want.”

“Um, yeah, that would be awesome,” Della said excitedly, smiling at Louie. He smiled back. Della internally relaxed a little bit. 

Louie placed Dewey’s hand on the little towel between them carefully and then turned around to grab a plastic tub filled with different colors of nail polish. He dropped it in front of Della. “Choose the colors you want,” he said, grinning at her. 

Every smile from Louie felt like a million weights off her shoulders. Della happily obliged.

Louie turned his focus back to Dewey’s right hand and Della began to sort through the bottles of nail polish. Almost all looked like they’d been used pretty frequently.

“Could you turn that down?” Huey piped up from the corner. He meant the music coming from the laptop, Della presumed. Different bits of songs were playing on loop.

Dewey rolled his eyes and clicked the ‘volume down’ button a couple of times.

She looked at the laptop, trying to figure out what was playing on the screen. “We’re watching TikTok meme compilations,” Dewey explained to Della.

“Half of that sentence made zero sense to me,” Della said. She saw Louie chuckle.

Dewey blinked at her, and then laughed. “Right. Moon.”

“Also: adult,” Louie added.

“No, it’s cool, I’ll get it,” Della said, smirking.

They sat in silence for a little bit. Every once in a while a horrible screeching noise would play instead of a song clip and Dewey and Louie would laugh.

“So,” Dewey spoke up, blinking up at Della, “what’s the best part about being back on earth?” 

Every attempt from Dewey to get to know Della better filled her heart with joy. She wished she could express it better.

“You guys, obviously,” Della said, nudging Dewey’s shoulder with her own.

Dewey peered at her. “What about burritos?”

Della paused. “Yeah. Burritos.”

Dewey seemed satisfied at that. 

“Seriously, though, hearing about you three from your Uncle Donald has got to be one of the highlights. He tells me all the best stuff,” she said happily.

Louie’s head shot up at that. He met her gaze. “What stuff?”

Della chuckled. “Oh, I don’t know. The good stuff. Stories from when you were babies, things like that.”

Louie squinted at her suspiciously. Della faltered. Did she say something wrong?

“Did he tell you about the time Dewey tried to sell me on eBay?”

Della blinked. Dewey groaned and rolled his head back. “You’re never going to let it go,” he mumbled.

“Um, no,” Della said, not sure if she should laugh. “Dewey tried to… sell you… on eBay.”

“Yep,” Louie said hotly. “For forty-five cents.”

Della definitely laughed then. “Oh my God, _what_?”

“Yeah,” Louie continued. He was laughing now. “We were _five_.”

“I can’t believe you’re _still_ holding a grudge,” Dewey complained. 

“Hang on,” Huey spoke up from his chair. He placed his book down and got up to come sit with the others. “What about that time Lou made Dewey take a bite out of an onion every day for a month?”

Della cracked up. “Oh my God!”

Dewey groaned even louder and snuck a glance at Della. “This is so embarrassing for me,” he whined.

“Okay, it’s not like you weren’t in on it too, Hubert,” Louie shot back.

“No, listen, it’s hilarious,” Huey said, grinning at Della. “Louie told Dewey that if he ate a chunk of raw onion every day for a month, he’d get special powers. Dewey literally did until Uncle Donald found a bunch of onions with bite marks in the compost.”

Della was laughing hard, and her boys seemed to be too, simply at the sight of their mom cracking up.

“Wow, no, Donald definitely left those stories out,” she snorted.

Dewey chuckled. “He probably didn’t want to give away how useless we actually are.”

Dewey’s smile immediately slipped, like he just realized what he said. They all sobered up. The room went quiet.

Della watched Dewey and Huey exchange glances. Louie was staring hard at the floor.

She should say something. Clearly they had some feelings bottled up… _all three of them_. Did they all feel insecure around her?

She should say something. She was their mother.

Well, no, not really.

Della sucked in a breath. “Boys, listen--”

Dewey interrupted her quickly. “Haha, what? Anyway,” he said loudly, eyes darting to his brothers for assistance. “Did -- did you pick your colors?” He shoved the box of nail polish closer to Della.

Della didn’t know what to say. How would a mom handle a situation like this? Let it slide? Make them talk?

She reached into the box and pulled out a glittery orange color. “Orange,” she said. “Just ugly enough to be cool.” She smiled weakly.

All three boys smiled back at her with identical expressions, all lacking enthusiasm.

Della cleared her throat. She examined the nail polish bottle. “None of you are useless. Just saying.”

All three boys shifted their gaze to the floor. Louie blushed. Huey opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but Della pressed on:

“I think you three are the coolest kids in the world.”

Dewey met her gaze.

“Seriously.” She smiled at him. “I’m so lucky I get to be your mom.”

Dewey grinned back, eyes shining. He crawled over to Della and gave her a hug.

Della squeezed Dewey close and opened her arm for the other two. They both stood up and joined the hug, embracing Della tightly. She really was lucky.

“You guys are perfect. I’m just trying my best to keep up,” Della said softly. “I love you no matter what.”

They all cuddled closer. “Thanks, Mom,” Huey said quietly. 

_Mom_.

“Always.”

Della paused at the music playing floating the laptop. “Is that Smash Mouth?”

Dewey pulled away. “It’s _All Star_ , Mom. From _Shrek_.”

Louie fake-whispered to Dewey, “That’s what she means.”

Dewey ignored him. “Mom, you literally know nothing about pop culture, do you?”

Huey added, “Uncle Donald doesn’t either, and _he_ wasn’t stuck on the moon for ten years.”

Louie patted Della’s head patronizingly. “It’s okay, Mom. We’ll watch _Shrek_ with you.”

“I know what _Shrek_ is,” Della protested. She turned on Louie. “Don’t patronize me, young man,” she said with mock seriousness before diving in to tickle him.

(One thing she’d learned from Donald: tickle fights were always a yes. Louie was insanely ticklish.)

Louie shrieked and twisted his body violently in Della’s lap. His brothers laughed excitedly and joined in. Louie immediately started crying tears of laughter.

They eventually all turned on each other in a massive tickle (and suddenly, pillow) fight, and made so much noise that Scrooge and Beakley came running up to their room thinking something was seriously wrong. 

Della felt elated. If this was how she would build a relationship with her boys - through awkward silences and tickles - then so be it. 

She’d be their mom. Their clingy, awkward mother with no idea how to apply nail polish or why _All Star_ was still popular or how to have difficult conversations, because she loved her boys to death and hated every minute she wasn’t with them.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so so so much for reading! I'm sorry this is a mess idk what im doing anymore <3
> 
> please leave any triplets/hdlw fic recs in the comments!!! i'll write ur stuff and love u forever! <3
> 
> (come chat to me on tumblr! - ducks blog [louyd] - main blog [charliespring])


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